Ronan O'Brien Quoted in Financial Week

In a the November 13 issue of Financial Week [Governance gurus facing sunshine: If ISS goes public, its secret criteria for rating companies may too ], Ronan O’Brien is quoted on the impact of an initial public offering for Institutional Shareholder Services. The article notes that ISS, which was recently acquired by RiskMetrics Group, would be opening itself up to close examination as a public company.

“ISS’ customers would be very turned off by a public error from a corporate governance adviser,” said Ronan O’Brien, a partner in the corporate and finance arm of Seyfarth Shaw, a New York law firm. “There is some heightened risk and scrutiny.”

Despite concern over ISS’ governance ratings, the company had 19 bidders and RiskMetrics paid more than 13 times the roughly $40 million that ISS went for five years ago when it was sold by Thomson Corp. to an investor group that included private equity firm Warburg Pincus and British pension fund Hermes Pensions Management.

“The amount of interest shown in this property says how bullish the market is on the demand for corporate governance services,” said Mr. O’Brien of Seyfarth Shaw. “And in this new era of shareholder activism, there’s a lot of room for growth.”